eZ Publish 4.3 CMS with Collaboration Extension

The new minor version of the eZ Publish content management system provides extended functions for user commenting and an enhanced administration interface.

The Norwegian CMS provider has been active since the end of 2009 in getting two new extensions in the new version 4.3. Another new feature allows visitors to a website maintained with eZ can edit their own and others' comments and receive notifications of new comments. Instantly noticeable is eZ Publish 4.3 redesigned admin interface complete with a new dashboard that allows fewer clicks to get things done and more flexibility. The Teamroom collaboration module allows a group of eZ Publish users to share common documents, files and other data and create project plans. The new version also provides a "brand new" module for user-generated content. This is apparently an enhanced functionality for the eZ Comments feature, as a separate web page for the new module is not apparent.

For a full list of features, click here. The all-inclusive version of eZ Publish is available as a gz-compressed tar archive at 35 MB, with additional package versions on a download page. The detailed release notes include a link to upgrade instructions.

eZ Publish is a CMS under GPLv3 with included as well as additional cost-based extensions. Feature rich plugins such as eZ Newsletter are also part of the eZ family. A PHP library of eZ Components for developers is under BSD licensing. The eZ Systems company has its headquarters in Skien, in the southern part of Norway, with offices in Japan, North America, Germany, France and Denmark. Its income is from proprietary licenses and training and support contracts.

Microsoft has been quite successful with pushing its SharePoint technology as a means for supporting document collaboration and version control. Until now, no direct competitors have come up with a viable alternative to SharePoint, but O3Spaces is about to change that.